Wednesday Woild

Alright, the new fridge came today. KG was busy and the fact that we had to get one out and another in and past the washer and dryer and move food from one to another and then clean the old one while it was empty was all a rather inconvenient agenda. We did it though and mostly put the kitchen back together as well. It’s nice, I guess. KG likes it and that’s what it’s all about. It’s a French Door model with the freezer on the bottom and except that it’s a little narrower than we wanted, it fits nicely. Now we finally have a backup fridge for beers and ice and stuff.
So I had to work from home to be here for it and that’s been pretty pleasant. I got quite a bit done today in spite of the obvious distractions. Tomorrow I go back to the office and Friday I’m off work and off with KG to Daddy O on Long Beach Island at the Jersey Shore to do a little celebrating for my impending birthday. I forget where we saw the hotel but I said that if it weren’t too, what?… snooty (and why would it be in Jersey?), it would be fun to go off season and then KG found some concert tickets in Atlanta City and so we’re making a road trip out of it. I like the beach in winter so it shouldn’t be all that awful, and we get to see Suzanne Vega as well. It ain’t Jamaica but it’s out of town for a couple of days and it should be refreshing.

Besides, it’ll get me away from the fireplace. Seriously though, I gave it another scrubbing and now, after I wash the last of the residual off, it’s going to be ready to seal and finish. Thanks to all who encouraged me to do that again, it looks really good now. I know I owe some pics of it. Maybe I’ll put one out there today.

Next; KG’s mom sent me her annual birthday/Christmas gift certificate for The Territory Ahead and I ordered about 10 things, most of them arrived today and they are so cool that I’m looking forward to my next shower just so that I can put some of them on. Their clothes are nice even if they are made in China (probably in a miserable sweat shop run by evil capitalists.) It’s not very nice to think about. So my idea is to make really nice clothes like TTA, but make them in the US and charge enough for them that the workers can survive and make it a status thing. I’d pay more for domestic clothing if it was as good as TTA’s.
Speaking of manufacturing, I went to the Clipper City Brewing tour last Saturday. It was pretty cool but a local celeb gave the tour instead of the owner so I couldn’t get answers to all of my questions. I’m going to have to go back when the main guy is doing the tour guiding. It was fun though and I had a few nice samples and got to see under the skirts of the brewery.
If I could invent a cheap and reliable bottling system I could make a zillion bucks.

Days Pass

I had this for breakfast today. A giant pancake with a fried egg and bacon chunks embedded. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, eh?

Today has been one of those days when an unusual number of things go wrong. I’m trying to dig it out and finish the day on the plus side but it still seems as though I’m swimming upriver. I scrubbed the tile on the fireplace (the never ending saga of the fireplace, I’m looking forward to the next project that involves something else) and it’s looking pretty good. There is still a bit of haze in one area and I’m deciding whether to scrub it with acid again. I’ll try to think myself out of it.
We were supposed to get a new refrigerator today and when the delivery people came it was about ½ inch too wide for the space. Yeah, that was my fault and I’m pretty effing dumb sometimes but I would have had to pull the fridge out and measure the space with it not there to get the right dimensions. I guess that’s another live and learn thing. So we’re looking for another fridge and KG who thinks major appliances are a lot of fun is more than a bit disappointed.
Oh, the furnace just quit unexpectedly as well. We’re lucky it’s not too cold and that we have a service contract, at least I hope we’re lucky we have a service contract. The guy is on his way to service it as I write and we’ll see whether it’s a covered part. I’d sure prefer not to get a new furnace right now.
We hosted the Schmids last night. Dinner was amazing. If this were a food-blog I’d go into the details of it all, but suffice it to say that it was all really really delicious, even my parts (well, not my parts but the parts I made.) KG might talk about it a little. I’m just going to say that the Schmidlaps were on their best behavior and we even had some fun. They have a new Caddy, well 2 years old. I saw when they arrived that they weren’t driving either of their old cars and it seems they took the plunge and bought a new one. I reminded G-lo that she might give Sam her old El Dorado, but she thinks she wants to sell it instead; she says she needs the money. Stingy old hag. Anyhow they brought a couple of nice bottles of wine and some red cabbage and kohlrabi and while G-lo’s cooking skills have diminished severely in her old age, it was a nice reminder of a couple of old family recipes.
I’m washing a couple cases of beer bottles right now. When they’re done I’ll bottle my Imperial IPA. It’s been dry hopping for almost three weeks and had two weeks in primary, which means I brewed it almost five weeks ago. It’ll only have a month to carbonate and condition before the big Christmas Party and I don’t think it’ll quite be at its prime, but the Apple Jack is getting a nice fizz to it and it’ll certainly be ready by then. I’ll figure out the specs on the IPAA when I bottle it but I’m expecting about 9% abv and pretty wickedly hoppy.
Sometimes time passes during the writing of these things and behold that is what happened during this one. It’s Saturday morning already. I bottled the IPAA. Liquid crack; I think it’s the best beer I’ve brewed to date and tastes delicious even now. It’s getting so that the beer I make is turning out more and more like what I picture in my mind when I start. Anyhow, things came together nicely and it should be a wonderful brew to serve this Christmas.
The furnace got fixed and our service contract covered the entire repair. The house is nice and warm again, which is convenient in that it’s quite a bit cooler this morning than yesterday. The little things.
So, there’s a tour at Clipper City Brewery today. I’m going to take myself up to B’more and check it out. They share some beers with the hapless tourists as well which are just coincidentally, some of my favorites of theirs. I also have to buy KG a new refrigerator, again.

Anthrax and HCl

It was a tough weekend, scrubbing old dried grout from my raw slate tile fireplace with a solution of hydrochloric acid. Big rubber gloves, goggles, no boots though, I was able to persist for about 3 hours each of both days and now it is almost complete. I just have a couple of small spots I want to hit again to make them as clean as the rest of it. It looks really nice and next I’ll mount a simple plank mantle which should finish it off nicely. Next we build a fire and hope nothing falls off.

Monday wasn’t much better. I was tired and cranky but when I got home I had a couple of homebrews and since KG and Ronnie had some errands, I was able to spend some quiet time putting myself right. I slept well and feel entirely better today.

Interestingly, or otherwise, I’ve been thinking about 9/11/2001 again and someone asked me recently how such a big secret as the government knowing it was about to happen (if not actually perpetrating it themselves as the evidence suggests) might have been kept. So many people must have known something about something, if it were the product of the intelligence agencies, how could it have been so neatly swept under the rug? One thing that comes to mind is anthrax. The anthrax attacks followed the 9/11 attacks so closely that, as traumatized as we all were, they seemed like just another part of it, and maybe they were, though a rather more closely targeted part of it. The intended victims of the attacks were media figures and politicians, notably Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Had either of the Senators died from the attacks control of the senate would have passed to the Republicans and a stern anthrax warning to the press to keep quiet about the whole monstrous affair certainly didn’t go unnoticed. I’m not exactly saying that’s what happened but I’m a student of alternate realities and as they say, a man’s gotta believe in something, and of course, the official versions of events certainly don’t add up. Check out this list of cases.. ‘Get in line, sit down, and shut up!’ has been the motto of this entire administration pretty much from day 1. It’ll be nice if this country is ever again a republic or a democracy.

That said, it is Thanksgiving week and KG and I are serving dinner to the Schmidlaps. It wasn’t on our list, really, but they didn’t have any other plans and, in spite of having some low-level plans for a quiet day together, we both felt as if it was the right thing to do. So, we’re making a turkey and a few fixins. If we can keep out of trouble it’ll be a good thing, they display their resentments at times when there are no other witnesses. We also are hosting the entire fam-damily for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations and it will be much nicer to do that without a bunch of nasty words floating around in the recent past. Yes, it would also be nicer to do it without nasty thoughts as well, and that is my holy grail and I have to do it in my own head first and then I have to be patient and loving with the others to help them do it. And then flowers bloom.

Veteran’s Day

Veteran’s Day today and I’m off work, as opposed to being on work, I guess. I put some sealer on my slate fireplace today and realized there is still too much grout haze, I have to give it all a big acid bath. Not good news but pretty much the price one pays for do-it-yerself when doing something new. I won’t fall for that one again. Dar Williams was really a joy at the Ram’s Head last Thursday. We had two of the best seats in the house and could literally look at her nose hairs, if she’d had any. The Ram’s Head is so small that after a concert there one has the illusion of actually knowing the artist. I felt that way. A charming lady, to be sure.

Friday I took half a day off and drove down to Richmond to pick Sam up and bring her home. I took the scenic route out 66, and then down 29 to 522 at Culpepper. 522 runs into 33 which meanders down to Richmond. It was a fun drive in spite of the weather being sort of gloomy and intermittently rainy. I stopped at a distillery, one that historically had been a moonshiner. The owner, great grandson of the founder, finally got it licensed a few years back. The equipment was impressive and the tour was fascinating. I bought a couple bottles of his product when it was over and KG is still laughing at me. The Whiskey isn’t bad but the 100 proof corn liquor (white lightening) is a bit too corny for drinking. It’ll make good disinfectant for my brewing parts though (I hate using good vodka to disinfect hops and bottle caps and stuff.)

Anyhow, Sam was good. We talked the whole trip home and caught up on things. Once home and as soon as she caught sight of Ronnie, she was gone with her for the evening. It was as though she’d never left. It felt really, really good to see them together and having fun, thick as thieves. A highpoint of my otherwise uneven, but not entirely dissolute, fatherhood.

Saturday we took the girls out for some shopping. Sam was excited enough about that that she woke up early. We dropped a couple of C-notes at Nordstroms’ Rack (I got a new shirt and tie.) For lunch we dined at Baja Fresh. Once we got home, Sam went out with some friends from her time here and Ronnie took some Homecoming pics for the school paper.

Saturday night was Ronnie’s Homecoming dance and for KG and me a dinner party at Betty and Dan’s (of Betty Beer fame.) We ate, talked (story), drank, and watched the slideshows from the wedding. It was great to spend some Q-time with them again. We got home at about 12:30. Ronnie was already home (the dance was boring), and then Sam wandered in at about 1:30 (I was waiting up, but of course.)

Sunday Sam woke up early again and we all went up to Target and the grocery store. We bought Sam a couple of new bras and some socks. <resentment> In spite of the $800 I send her mother every month, Sam has almost zero clothing; three pairs of jeans (hand-me-downs from her girlfriend) and two brassieres. She came here with no coat (as she usually does) and precious little of anything else. Cindy drives a new car and shops for herself at Nordstrom’s though. </resentment> Anyhow, yesterday afternoon I put Sam on the train and sent her back to Loonieville. She was very sweet and open on this trip, casually discussing things that I’m quite sure she can’t with her mom. We discussed college and that she should apply to schools all over the country instead of just MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) as she intended. She was really present and loving and Sammy. I’m all squishy at the fabulousness of our visit.

Then, as though we hadn’t yet had quite enough fun, our moviemaking neighbors came over for dinner last night. It was really a good time and we were at more than one point laughing hysterically, a al Cheech and Chong. We packed them off with the leftover crabcake and some mashed sweet potatoes at a respectably early hour and went right to sleep.

Today, as I said, I’m on holiday to honor Veterans’ Day. Wouldn’t making soldiers veterans for more honorable causes be a better reason for celebration? Throwing away the youth of our country on Imperial Overreach just seems too historically resonant as do the Democratic candidates’ excuses for their support of it. We make our lives through our beliefs and we use our children to insure them.

I guess at some point one just has to decide whether ensuring corporate dominance of global resources is really fighting for patriotism and freedom, or whether it’s just business as usual for the country that says the business of America is business.

School Night Follies

In spite of the fact that it’s a school night, The Goddess and I are going out to The Ram’s Head in Annapolis to see Dar Williams (they have beer there, you know.) We act out sometimes like that. I just downloaded her (Dar’s) newest album from Amazon.com and am listening to it as I write. Kitchen Goddess (henceforth referred to as KG) bought the tickets and I don’t know much about her but she sounds marginally like Mary Chapin Carpenter and I like her, so the concert should be ’simply lovely’.

Our Christmas Eve Feast of Seven Fishes looks as though it’s going to be a big one. My step-father John Brown (henceforth referred to as J-Bro) seems to have encouraged his entire extended family, including ex-wife, to accept our invitations. Add my psychological train wreck of a family to that mix and maybe a friend/neighbor or two and things could easily get out of hand (good thing I’ll be busy.) It’s going to be a wasps’ nest, as my lovely spouse says. We’ve got the guests bringing the booze though, which for WASPS can easily cost more than the food (especially at typical WASP portion-control size), so we’re golden there. By comparison to this bash, dinner the following day with the immediate family only should be a pretty sedate affair.

My Imperial IPA is in secondary now. It’s getting dry-hopped with a couple Ozs of Cascade and has what I think is some real potential to be one of my best brews so far. With the hop shortage it’ll be difficult to reproduce the exact flavor of this one, but I have the gestalt of it, so playing around with some different hops should be fun. KG and I want to make some Lemon Cello for holiday presents. We have to go buy some Everclear for that and then grate about 50 lemons. She bought some really cute bottles so it should be a nice present (from the heart.)

So, the Mermaid Party last weekend was a blast. I had some slightly alcohol-induced fantasies of being one of the last famous international playboys, but apparently I only embarrassed myself to one or two other revelers. It took a day or two to feel myself again though. Partygoer tip: avoid blue cocktails. The merms were awfully cute.

 

Oh, this is cute too. Ronnie did it and KG and I haven’t looked so slender in years.